


touch-starved

by stipulativeTzigane



Category: Dungeons and Daddies (Podcast)
Genre: ACAB, Angst, Back seat parenting, Existential Angst, Gen, Glenn can have a little therapy; as a treat, Glenn needs a year long hug, Glenn trying to be a good dad (illegally), Hallucinations, Heavy Angst, Men Crying, Narcolas is the actual worst, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychosis, Sensory Deprivation, Sensory Overload, Skin Hunger, Tags May Change, Time Shenanigans, Touch-Starved, animal companion, audio sensitivity, deadnaming, episode 51, freaking out, is Glenn calling Nicholas Nick deadnaming? Im going to tag it anyway, jail break, light sensitivity, no beta we die like men, oof
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:46:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29449512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stipulativeTzigane/pseuds/stipulativeTzigane
Summary: the consequences of Glenn Close's imprisonment that I don't think will be acknowledged in canon.also, did you know that some people call being touch starved (the longing to have physical human contact): """"skin hunger""""??!! like wtf dude no wonder, no one wants to hug you you keep yelling about how you're Hungry for Skin./j
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

Everything was so bright and loud. Glenn was trying to push through it, he had to push through it he hadn’t spent the last decade or so trying to get out of that fucking cell just to have a freakout when he was still in the building.

He squinted through his remaining good eye. Running his right hand over the cold cement of the wall he couldn’t see, as he traveled through this labyrinth of hallways. It was fine he was fine. Another thin barred window cut across his vision, the sound of waves against rocks roaring painfully in his head. He grit his teeth at it, he had to stop to cover his face with his bum hand once it was past.

“Squeak squeak?” the usually reassuring sound of Ratfriend was now only grating.

“Yah, yah. I just need a second.” Glenn focused on the feeling of his little friend shifting around in the hair at the back of his neck. The comfort of warmth from outside of himself had become an anchor in his endless time in the dark. The warmth was real, which means Ratfriend was real, which meant Glenn was real, which meant This was real. Everything was real, and so he couldn’t just sit down here and wait until everything felt okay. He had to go, he had to get out of here. He just needed to find an exit.

He set back out in a jog, his hand still running over the wall stopping at seems in the cement to his left to check what was there. Mostly just doors, hauntingly similar to the one he had been locked behind. He tried not to think about it, but as he dismissed the uncounted number of cells he could feel the existential horror seeping into his chest. How many people were spending full lifetimes here? How many people were slowly being driven insane in that endless dark? The more he passed the more he could almost feel them. The desperation that had threatened to consume him seemed to hang heavy in the winding hallways.

He pushed through it. He couldn’t deal with that now. Once he was out he could spend the rest of his life contemplating the centuries of human will being siphoned out of living sentient beings. In fact, he was almost certain there were things that happened inside these walls that would never actually leave him.

“Squeak....?” he had stopped again, leaning heavily against a door.

“I’m going.” he nodded reaching up to pet Ratfriend “we’re going.” he had just turned down the next hallway before, a loud bang raddled through him. He swore and pressed himself flat against the wall, adrenalin and fear bringing tears on his cheeks.

What was that noise? What was coming? Something had been slammed down with force or dropped. Maybe a door. Someone or something had slammed a door with a considerable amount of power. He had to figure out where, but the noise itself had been so overwhelming. He was finding it hard to breathe properly let alone try to pinpoint the location of the sound.

Luckily or possibly unluckily there were more sounds to fallow. Rushed footsteps and unintelligible voices echoed down the hallways from multiple directions. It was 5 maybe 10 people from how loud they were being. He was torn between fighting and hiding. He wouldn’t have admitted it, but he didn’t feel completely prepared to take on a battalion of armed guards. Hell, he wasn’t completely up for walking much farther without a couple of minutes to get his heart rate back down into a habitable zone. But hiding would be next to impossible in the wide barren hall.

He pushed up from the wall turning back in fourth in the center of the corridor to try and make up for his decreased range of vision. The voices were almost unbearable now, ringing around the uninsulated space. He tried to harness the coursing adrenaline into a useful pre-battle focus but mostly he was just shaking in sweating unarmed and exposed.

And then he could see them just two figures running around the corner bickering like an old married couple, and stopping short when they saw him. Glenn studied them unable to believe his eyes. It was Henry and Darryl, it had to be, they looked so distinctly like them down to every detail. Things he wouldn’t have remembered even in his most vivid hallucinations. The way Henry stood and stared like a spooked animal. How Darryl’s shoulders rose and fell with his heavy breathing. They looked so real, so tantalizingly, painfully real. He was almost afraid that if he made the wrong move they would evaporate as so many others had before.

“Glenn?” Darryl’s voice boomed in Glenn’s head. He took a step back unable to figure out what to say. The couple jogged towards him carefully.

“Glenn!” Henry reached him first, yelling in his ear as he threw his wiry frame around Glenn. He was so warm, almost painfully so, but Glenn could only lean into it, reaching out holding the heat of another real living person to him. Darryl’s large mass wrapping around the both of them only made Glenn melt further. He stifled sobs into the worn cotton of Henry’s t-shirt. How long since he had been held? Longer than he’d been in the dungeon, maybe even longer than he had been in the forgotten realms.

They were talking to him now too loud and too fast and too close. He just couldn’t process it. He shook his head to try and clear it, or at least to try and convey that this was alot all at once and he was going to need a minute before they could have a proper discussion.

Darryl pulled away leaving a massive hand on Glenn’s shoulder, and Henry pushed him back enough to look him in the eye. Glenn watched his lips move, with fascination until something dawned on him.

“Why...Why aren’t you old?” they weren’t, they looked just as he remembered them, only a bit of stubble and grime away from who they were at the trial. Henry’s face went sad and soft in a way that made Glenn’s stomach drop. Darryl’s hand squeezed his shoulder before the baritone of his voice sounded from behind Glenn.

“We would have come sooner if we had known.” Glenn looked back and forth between his two friends.

"How long?"

"About three days." The terror that ran through Glenn was (in his opinion) unnecessary. This was good news, It meant his friend hadn't forgotten about him. And Nick hadn't missed him too much. He could pick up almost exactly where he left off. But some bullshit magical sense in the back of his head raised alarms.

The amount of magic it took to do that was nothing to sneeze at. And not the sort of thing you wasted on some mid-level first offender. If they were willing to use that kind of power on him, what would they use to get him back? What would they do to him when they got him? He needed to think about something else anything else or the fear would freeze him right to this spot. Then he wouldn't have to imagine what horrible things they would do to him because they would drag him back to that endless dark, and then he would in no uncertain terms Know.

“How’s Nick? And where’s Ron?”

“Ron and Joe are watching the kids in the Panopticon.”

“Panopticon? Joe!?”

“We didn't want to risk the kids getting a worse sentence than-”

“Worse sentence?!?” Henry snapped his mouth shut eyes looking to Darryl for guidance. “Worse sentence? The kids have a sentence here? Which kids?? And who the fuck is Joe?” an uncomfortable silence stretched between the dads.

“Glenn we gotta go, we can talk about everything when we get everyone back together.” Glenn shook his head pushing away. His fear turning into anger in his stomach.

“Is Nick serving time here?” he demanded failing not to picture Nick chained to a wall in a cold empty cell. He could barely see Darryl and Henry through his rage.

“We've only spent one night here, Glenn. None of us have been through what... what they did to you.” Henry reached out a hand, hesitating before actually touching him. Glenn looked back from their faces to the hand forcing the words to make sense. Nick hadn't been chained to any wall, he hadn't spent a single second in that silent emptiness, he was fine. He was still a 12-year-old kid who had trouble sleeping without the hall light on. “Come on Glenn we gotta go.” Glenn nodded taking Henry’s hand and letting his friends lead him to the way out.

The next floor had open cell-fronts complete with iron bars, each with its own window, and people so many people. They called out and cheers as the party moved past. Clanging things against the bars and walls. Glenn his head between his left hand and shoulder focussing on the heat of Henry's hand in his own, the movement of Ratfriend against his neck, and the weight of Darryl's hand on his back. They were real, he was real, this was real.

Henry stopped the group in the quiet of the next stairwell.

“Are you okay to go on?” Glenn nodded scrubbing the tears off his face with the back of his free hand. But no one made him get back up until he wasn’t shaking so much. “Okay, okay, Glenn?” Henry pulled Glenn's chin up so they were making eye contact. “The next door is to the Panopticon, there’s alot of people, all outside. We have to go out and find the kids right?” Glenn nodded again. This was a side of Henry he hadn’t known before. This was the voice of a sober friend during a bad trip. It was so nice to just listen to someone who knew what was going to happen and had the patience to explain it in a soothing voice. “We need to act normal, or we will get caught and that would put the kids in danger, right Glenn?”

“Right.”

“Okay. were going to head out now-”

“Wait! shouldn’t we tell him about Nicholas?” the look Henry shot at Darryl was almost lethal

“Wait! what’s wrong with Nick?” he looked back to Darryl to see a portrait of guilt. Henry’s voice was still soothing but there was an edge to it.

“Nothing’s wrong with Nick, he’s just...different. I didn’t want to overwhelm you.” that was said more to Darryl than Glenn,

“Well, I think that if Narcolas is going be a problem for Glenn then maybe we should get most of that out of his system before we’re out in front of the guards.”

“NARColas!?!” Henry’s eyes telegraphed curses to Darryl, before turning back to Glenn.

“He prefers Nicholas now.” the idea that Nick could of have had such an identity change in so little time floured Glenn.

“Now??? It's been 3 days!” the silence that passed between the two other men was crushing.

“Glenn.” Darryl had his ‘this is going to be rough buddy’ voice on, and Glenn hated it. “When you... left Nick got a new dad.”

“Yeah, I know but he’s only had 3 days to fuck up my-”

“No, he... somehow for Nick, Joe’s always been his dad...” The words didn’t make sense he ran over them in his head again

“So Nick is Different...?” He looked back and forth between two of his best friends, hoping for some sort of lie.

“Yes, he’s...” and Glenn hated the way it felt to be so out of the loop the knowing silence between the two dads was gut twisting.

“Is he okay?”

“Yah he’s fine!” Henry was quick to answer Glenns deepest fears.

“And he’s still a kid?”

“Yes only 3 days older.”

“Okay, then I don't see the problem! I was expecting to come back to a jaded 20 something, if I've only been gone for a couple days then I still have a chance! I can still be a part of his life, even if he’s got this Joe character hanging around.” he could feel hope buzzing around in his chest “I get to see him grow up!” there was another pitying look from his friends. Henry even started to tear up. Anger flared in Glenn he wasn't some broken kid who needed parenting. He was a Man. a man who had done a Decade of hard-time, who had worked hard to get out.

“I'm ready to go now.” he stood, realizing for the first time that they had crouched down to rest for a minute.

“Are you sure, it's going to be alot out there?”

“Yah I'm fine”. Glenn reached up to pet Ratfriend “we're fine.” He took his hand back from Henry. Then walked himself to open the heavy iron door.


	2. Chapter 2

When Glenn had let himself imagine reuniting with Nick, he had pictured sweeping orchestral music and a slow mode running sequence that ended with one of those spinning hugs that felt like coming home in a way that normal hugs failed to capture. 

It would've been outside the prison so they wouldn't have to worry about anything but catching up for the next couple of hours at least. Glenn would have held his shoulders and just breathed in his wholeness, commented on how tall his boy had gotten, apologized for making him learn to shave with one of the other dads. They would have gotten beers and talked about everything the other had missed. They would have cried, neither one calling the other out about it. Crafting that reunion had been a lifeline for Glenn. 

He hadn't used it too often. Fantasies like that had been a powerful drug in the dark. The hope they inspired could get you through the worst of it, but the comfort they gave had been fiercely addictive when there was nothing else to live for. Glenn knew: if you thought about outside for too long, it came into the dark with you. Hallucinations would curl up next to you and try and convince you to stay. And not just the visual ones that floated dreamily across his under-lit cell. Glenn had heard hallucinations of Nick's laugh so hauntingly real. Had felt every swirl of the fingerprints on Morgan's hands. 

So Glenn had put a sizable amount of thought into what he wanted his first moments back with his son to be like. It wasn't completely surprising that the reality just didn't match up. But it was still hard to not feel disappointed when Glenn, stumbling overwhelmed into the crowd of people and blinding light, felt his boot land unevenly and heard the unmistakable voice of Nicholas Close. 

"Watch where you're going old man!" Little hands pushed against his chest, and despite the pain, and the shock and the disappointment Glenn grabbed them and followed them back to a slight frame fitting his son’s description perfectly. 

"Nick? Nick!" He pulled the boy to his chest. Hands searching for any sign of damage. Glen pressed his nose into his hair and somewhere under the dirt and foreign soap he smelled like Nick, like home and like Morgan and like everything he had worked so hard to live for. He held the stunned boy back out to try and see him through the painful light. but was interrupted by unfamiliar arms crushing him.

“Glenn!” A stranger's voice crowed. and then more people were hugging him. He could hear Ron and Paeden welcoming him. and somewhere behind him Henry and Darryl warning about not being too obvious. Glenn tried to reach out to find Nick again in the whirlwind of noise and light and the strange heat of humans so close. But the rest of their outing was hard to piece together, he was whisked through the panopticon in the heart of the gang. He never did get used to the light or the noise of it. Really it was all he could do to keep upright, to stay with the group. until they were herded away from the crowd, and back in the relative dark and quiet of their shared cell. the dads and kids still chatting excessively.

Glenn sat down shakily against the damp cement wall, letting the unyielding stone pull the heat from him. pressing his palms to his ears he focused on the sound of his heart thrumming through his chest. He felt Ratfriend give a worried squeak against his collar bone. 

“I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine...” he repeated in a whisper. in an attempt to reassure his furry friend. Finding that having something to do with his breath other than hyperventilating was good actually. He focused on the coarse fur of Ratfriend as the rodent nuzzled into the collar of his shirt. “you’re real I’m real this is real it's all real, real. real. really real.” Glenn mumbled to both him and his friend slowing the chant as he began to believe it. and then when he could breathe again he opened his eye to see the whole cell staring at him, with an array of horror and pity splattered across their faces. 

Glenn’s mouth gaped. He had no idea what to say. He had essentially just talked himself through what must've looked like a psychotic break, in the middle of their reunion party. how were you supposed to casually come back from that? he couldn't exactly go with ‘hey guys thanks for risking life and limb to get me out, sorry about the mumbling, I can only get through the day if I sit down and have a nice long chat with my mouse friend about the nature of reality, anyway it's great to see you, let’s all sit in silence for the next couple hours because every time one of you breathes too loud I can feel my inner ear being ground into a fine powder.’ luckily Paeden didn’t leave him hanging for long. 

“you. look. badass!” it was quite possibly the loudest whisper Glenn had ever encountered, and it still hurt a bit but the thought was there, and that was enough to make Glenn’s chest swell with love. 

“thank you, I’ve been working out.” He smiled at the kid, able to finally take in the details of his friends in the dim light of the cell. 

“no shit, you're ripped. you have got to share your routine with me!” the young boy walked over marveling at Glenn’s biceps, but stopped short of reaching out to touch him. 

“go ahead, I didn't do non-stop pull-ups for literal years just to have people look, their genuine guaranteed not to deflate or anything.” Paeden touched the left bicep with almost reverence. 

“and this was just pull-ups? how many?”

“I don't know kid, kinda lost count. I tried to do the math one time but it's hard to judge time down there,” Glenn flexed, making Paden’s attempt to fit his hands around the widest part of his arm near impossible. 

“if you did pull-ups? then how come this one’s bigger?” 

“oh, that’s the hand i-” 

“Okay there Glenn I don't think-” Darryl cut in putting big hands over Paeden’s ears. 

  
  


“oh, Darryl, I'm a righty all the way!” Glenn laughed at the red that bloomed under Darryl’s beard “I couldn't do that anyhow, they had my hands above my head.” he held up his arms to mime the position he'd been stuck in for at least 8 years. he said it lightly but the looks he was getting from the gang was shocked horror at best. “well not the whole time, I got out of those a while ago. I did the left hand first, had to wiggle it out of the cuff, that's why it's bigger. after that, I just untied the other hand.'' With the explanation done, Glenn had hoped everyone would go back to not looking at him like some tragic martyr. but his friends somehow managed to look more concerned. 

“is that what happened to it?” Henry asked gently from where he was sitting. 

“happened to what?” 

“your guitar hand.'' Glenn looked down at the miss-set pinky and thumb on his left hand, and for the first time realized that it was the hand used for fingering on the guitar. it had seemed inconsequential in the Dark. but now that he really looked at the mangled digits a sense of grief set in his chest. could he even play with a hand like that?

“yeah, i... had to get it out of the cuff, there was no other... nothing I could of...” his voice sounded far away. had it really been necessary to break his hand? if Darryl and Henry were only a floor above him? “how long was it out here exactly?”

“um 2 and a half days,” Darryl looked back at Ron for confirmation on his math, 

“I think just over 50 hours.” Glenn had to turn almost completely to see the Man (Joe he guessed) who had spoken. Glenn tried to do the math. 10 years into 50 hours meant each year had been about five hours of real-time. So Darryl and Henry had been maybe a year away when he got out. He could have done another year. if he had known... 

“squeak.” Ratfriend was right, he hadn't known. He had assumed they had abandoned him, or at least gotten sidetracked. Getting out had given him something to work towards, could he have done the same amount of time just waiting? Glenn doubted it. He would have gone crazy. (Or significantly crazier at least) 

"Um Glenn, hi, I'm Ron, I just couldn't help but notice that you have a rat on you, at this particular moment." Glenn looked up to the stammering man sitting in the corner. 

"Yah this is Ratfriend, he's my..." Glenn was unsure what exactly went there 'pet? familiar? comrade? Sole reason I was able to hold on to what's left of my sanity?’ Nothing seemed to cover it. "Friend, who is a Rat." He finished lamely. 

"Oh?" at least Ron seemed genuinely interested " that's very nice, I just want to give you a warning about how rats seem to disappear within the span of one hour here in the forgotten realms..." The little man's eyes started to well with tears.

"Thanks, Ron, I don't think that's going to happen but-"

"It's just that you seem like you lost so much with your hand and your Nick and your eye I just didn't want you to get hurt more." and honestly how could you be annoyed at that?

“Wait, how did he lose Nicholas?” Glenn turned the full 180 to look back at Joe and spent some time actually looking. He was a cop. He wasn't wearing any uniform but there was the same shit-eating, ‘no one knows I’m a cop even though I’m out here in my cop ass boots and the crispest bluejeans' vibe that hung around him. he sported half rim glasses and a crew cut that would have at least been intimidating on a trimmer man. but did little favors to Joe's round face. The overall look was that of a traffic cop who took full advantage of free donuts and got too excited about tabletop gaming.

Glenn was going to say something about how the whole trial had been rough, but he stopped when he actually saw the boy in question. The lean kid shadowing Joe was so far from the boy had given up a decade ago. 

He looked younger somehow. something in his face or the way he sat, Genn couldn't put a finger on it. Maybe it was the clothes, Khakis and polos always made Glenn think of kids who couldn't make their own wardrobe decisions yet, and the cartilage piercing he had begged for was completely gone. But by far the biggest change was the haircut. He had it buzzed, no trace of the red die that had become a tradition in their home. Which hurt. Morgan had been the one to suggest they should add some color back when Nick was a toddler. They had been dying each other's hair ever since. The idea that Nick would just abandon the last bit of Morgan they’d been able to hold on to, just to get back Glenn, sucked so bad. 

He almost wondered if this was the same boy. but just as Glenn felt a flicker of doubt Nick met his gaze and there was no denying that those were Morgan’s eyes set into the kid’s face. 

“Not Narcolas,” Ron's voice pulled Glenn out of the daze he’d fallen into. “were talking about-”

“Glenn’s son Nick.” Henry interrupted staring daggers at Ron. “Glenn had a son, Nick,” and here the Hippy started to realize that he hadn't thought out what he was actually saying. “that is different from Joe’s son, Nicholas...”

“But he’s back on earth!” Darryl helped, throwing an ‘i've got you’ look at Henry. “Glenn left his Nick at home. and... because he got thrown in jail, part of the sentence was that Nick would be put in foster care.” 

“yes! yes! Glen’s going to have to deal with some serious custody battles when we get back." It was a decent lie, even if Henry sounded more excited about figuring out an excuse than the situation called for. 

"He might even """ battle""" for Nick before we get home, huhuh-” Ron’s not quite a laugh was cut off by angry glares from both Henry and Darryl. 

“Oh, that’s real rough Glenn, but I’m sure it won’t be too hard to get Nick back. And I’m certain any one of us dads would be willing to speak on your resilience and dedication in any reliable court; I know I would.” Glenn stared at Joe, searching for any sign of malice in the Cop’s face, but the Man was being completely honest. 

Awkward silence seeped into the cell, and Glenn reveled in the comforting empty air, leaning his head back against the cement and closing his eye. 

“Why didn’t you bring Nick?” Glenn snapped to focus at the sound of Nicholas’ voice. The kid was glaring at him, with a look Disgust. 

And how could he answer that? He hadn't left Nick, or at least not this time. Shure he had left him at home other times, but that was because he had to. You couldn't just bring your kid on tour. Or you couldn't bring your child on tour, but Glenn had met preeteens who toured with their parents. They got homeschooled, and learned cool things they actually were going to use in the real world. Glenn had just never really looked into it, and why hadn't he? Having Nick on tour would have been fun, or fun in a different way. There were certainly tour activities Glenn couldn't do with Nick around. And that had been it, hadn’t it?

“I wanted to have fun.” Nick scowled further. 

“And you can't have fun with your son around.” 

“No, No! Nick and I have tons of fun.” how could he explain it? Glenn shut his eye again to try and find the words. “But it’s different. Hanging with Nick... it can be a lot sometimes.”

“So Nicks sucks.” fuck it hurt to hear his kid say it. Is that what Nick felt when Glenn left him?

“No! Oh god No, Nicks the best! He’s so funny and cool and clever, he’s so much better than me already.” Glenn looked back to Nicholas, he had to know that Glenn didn’t think he sucked.

“Then why didn’t you bring him?” 

“Okay, Nick I think Glenn has had a long day, I think we should let him get some rest-” Joe tried to cut in, but Glenn brushed him aside. 

“No, Nicholas can say whatever he wants to me. It’s been so long since I had someone to talk to.” Joe looked upset but didn’t say anything. “I didn’t bring Nick, because sometimes, he's just..." Glenn probed the feelings he'd tried to ignore for so long now "I want to be good for him, you know? All put together and _Whole_ , I guess. I haven't felt like that since we lost his mom, and.... I guess sometimes I just...." Glenn reached past the ache in his chest for the right words

"when I'm gone, I can pretend they're both home, like we'd always planned, it makes it livable. Easier to pretend I'm fine when I'm back, even when he looks so much like her I can't stand it. I know it's wrong, but I... I just love them both so much, I want to be good for them." It took a minute to remember that he was in a room full of people. He glanced around embarrassed at the other men. Before he caught Nicholas unsympathetic eyes 

"It sounds like you're putting a lot of shit on a kid who has no control over the situation. Maybe he's better in Foster Care?" 

"Nicholas, language!" Joe started. But none of that mattered. 

"He's right." Glenn couldn't stop staring at this Kid who was not his kid. 

"That doesn't mean he can just swear at an adult." 

"He can swear at me all he wants. I don't care." And Glenn didn't care, how could he care about anything anymore, there was nothing else to care about. 

"Glenn I understand that you have had a rough time but I would appreciate it if you could stop undermining my parenting." Joe's voice, while not unkind had a distinct edge to it. Glenn shifted his gaze to the cops face. 

"Whatever man, you're the Dad."


End file.
